College Football Week 14 Picks: Pitt at Cincinnati and Nevada at Louisiana Tech

Last week’s picks were a lesson in the power of trends.

Oklahoma State looked like they were poised to finally end the dominance of Oklahoma, but Bedlam turned out like it always does—at least in part because the Sooners passed for about six million yards.

Luckily Michigan State easily took care of business against Penn State to turn the week into a split.

This is the last week of the regular season and the first of the playoffs in the case of several conferences. Here’s hoping that with these Week 14 college football picks and odds we end the season with a bang:
 

Pitt (+2) at Cincinnati (Saturday, Dec. 4, 12 p.m. EST)

This is a pretty sad game, really. Both of these teams put together pretty good seasons last year, and both had—to varying degrees—high expectations coming into this season. Neither has lived up to those hopes, and Pitt has been a particular disappointment.

Pitt is bowl bound and Cincinnati isn’t, but neither team really has a lot to play for. Both are coming off very disappointing games in which they were blown out when they should have at least been competitive. Neither really have a lot of reasons to be motivated.

The motivation edge goes to Pitt for one big reason, though: coach Dave Wannstedt. Wannstedt has been under a lot of fire recently, and there are a lot of people out there who think that he should be fired. He’s a fairly popular coach with his players, though, and I suspect that the team will rally around him to get him another win and hopefully keep the wolves at bay for another season.

If they are fired up because of that, then they shouldn’t face too much resistance from a Cincinnati team that has played four of their last five games like they are eager to have the season end.

Though Pitt has struggled on the score sheet, they have been a solid 5-2-1 ATS in their last eight games, so they are taking care of business at least to some extent. They should be able to take care of business again here.

Nevada (-9.5) at Louisiana Tech (Saturday, December 4, 3 pm ET)

The question here is how Nevada will bounce back after their stunning win over Boise State last weekend in one of the strangest games in a long time. I’m willing to bet that they bounce back strong.

Nevada has earned a small taste of national respect with that win, but they can’t keep it if they come out flat here. On top of that, this is QB Colin Kaepernick’s last regular season game, and he’ll be looking to come out strong to finish things off.

Louisiana Tech can score a pile of points, but they have not been as impressive when they have played against top opponents, and the Wolf Pack are at least the second best opponent the Bulldogs have faced this year.

Louisiana Tech become bowl eligible with a win here, but I’m not convinced that a meaningless bowl game will be incentive enough to match up against what should be a flying Nevada team.

Skill and momentum both fall solidly on the side of Nevada, and that’s enough for this college football handicapper.